Energy retrofits to enhance energy performance of existing buildings: a review

Abstract

Inefficient buildings use three to five times the energy as efficient buildings. Herein, improving the Energy Efficiency (EE) of buildings, specifically existing buildings that account for a large part of the building sector, has become a major priority. Energy Retrofits (ER) are identified as the main approach to enhance energy performance of buildings to achieve energy reduction targets. Yet, a general lack of awareness exists with respect to ER, types of ER and the possible ER measures through which building EE could be enhanced. Thus, the aim of this paper is to fill this research gap by critically reviewing the relevant literature on ER. With the intention of avoiding the misperceptions on the concept of ER, the paper first analysed various definitions of ER provided by different authors. This had made it clear that in addition to enhancing EE, ER also result in upgraded functionality, improved architectural quality, increased aesthetic value, reduced resource consumption, decreased CO2 emissions and improved indoor air quality. Besides, based on the critical review of literature, the paper also discusses different types of ER that could be adopted to retrofit a particular building and different ER measures that could be used to retrofit different building elements/systems. The findings of this study could be used by practitioners as a basis in understanding the available ER types and measures for the buildings that would be of use in making effective decisions during their endeavours to enhance the EE of existing buildings.